A Gateshead company known worldwide for its retro football shirts has produced its first range of rugby jerseys in celebration of England hosting the World Cup.

The Old Fashioned Football Company, which this year celebrates its 25th birthday, has produced vintage versions of both shirts and hoodies representing England, Australia, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa and Wales, the designs reflecting the styles of the first half of the 20th century.

Despite only being launched on Friday - with a limited marketing campaign, based on social media and email - sales have got off to a strong start, according to financial controller Susan Nee.

“This is first time we’ve moved into rugby, so its quite exciting,” she said.

“Inspired by World Cup - especially the fact that some games are being played at St James’ Park - our designers went through all the old rugby styles that were used in the past.

“We had to be careful with some trademark and that meant some slight tweaks, but we’ve got them as close as we possibly could.

“They were only launched on Friday, but sales have been quite good so far.

“We usually get a spurt of them after we’ve done an email, but because rugby is new to us, we didn’t know if that would be the case this time.

“It would be nice to think those sales would continue after the World Cup is over.”

The workforce at Toffs

Established by husband and wife Alan and Michele Finch in 1990, Toffs, as the company is also known, produced its first ever home-spun replica shirt using a dressmaker in Heaton, the design emulating a retro Arsenal strip.

Going on to specialise in producing niche, high quality replica clothing previously been unavailable to football fans, it got its first major break after securing the right to produce shirts under the Euro 96 licence in conjunction with the End of an Era initiative at Wembley.

Since then, it has grown to turnover between £1m and £1m and now employs 23 people.

“We’ve got new investors in the business,” Ms Nee said. “So we are now trying some new things.

“As well as rugby it’s possible we could look at golf and other sports - although that wouldn’t be in the immediate future.”

She added that, as it celebrates its 25-year milestone, Toffs had also just launched its own product range, featuring the Toffs logo, rather than that of a particular football team.

It was also working extensively with well-known designers and had purchased new T-shirt printing equipment.

“We’re been going 25 years, so we’re a well-known brand world-wide,” she said.

“But we still manufacture everything using traditional methods in our own production unit here in the Team Valley. We also source our fabrics from the UK, so as whole, we like to keep things Made in Britain.”